tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54880212017-04-27T17:43:24.165-07:00Orthonormal BasisPatricknoreply@blogger.comBlogger375125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-71490701221334211052011-04-14T19:41:00.001-07:002011-04-14T19:41:41.511-07:00Self SummaryConsider, if you dare, all of the possible mathematical formulae. Some of them represent trivial truths: 2+2=4. Some of them represent infinite and intricate patterns, like the Mandelbrot fractal. And some of them can be thought of as representing entire universes. There's one in particular, unknown to human minds but probably not all that complicated once it's written out, which unfolds into an Patricknoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-85383360216268703192008-12-31T21:04:00.000-08:002008-12-31T21:08:29.788-08:00Quadratic ResolventSince last year's resolutions turned out so well (no, really!), I'm doing it again. This year it seems to be simpler.1. Do more of what I care about.2. Care about more things.Not as poetic as last year, alas; but it's what strikes me at the moment.Patricknoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-48015835719349668332008-06-03T12:23:00.000-07:002008-06-03T12:27:34.840-07:00Ideas are no excuse for bad writing.E.g. my previous post title. "Upon Truth"? Really?Perhaps I'll post here again sometime soon. Right now I'm busy with Applied Nietzsche rather than the theoretical side.Patricknoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-7333552524121542772008-04-22T10:07:00.000-07:002008-04-22T10:46:01.682-07:00A Reply Upon TruthI rather expected these sorts of reactions to my last post— my imagined audience is more and more securely atheist, but of course my actual readers are more religious. Aphoristic writings require a similar framework for the identification of the referent, and they are in essence untranslatable across a large cultural divide.I've reconsidered my first aphorism, because it seems even to me to say Patricknoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-22309553641000632262008-04-13T14:54:00.000-07:002008-04-22T09:23:29.617-07:00AphorismsPursue knowledge and truth at all costs, make them your constant mantra— only in this way will you discover that you can have neither.The beasts of history— the Borgias, for example— exemplify not the rejection of morality, but rather the most basic form of it, appearing in an age where the common morality has grown exhausted."Turn the other cheek"— is this not the most seductive costume the willPatricknoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-39541980981299152902008-04-01T00:12:00.000-07:002008-04-01T00:13:53.629-07:00Heh heh heh.Oh, I'd forgotten how much I enjoy setting April Fool's pranks; and I've just finished one bolder than most...Depending on how it turns out, I might even explain it in a few days.Patricknoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-70059141306088474722008-03-29T18:51:00.001-07:002008-03-30T20:55:01.334-07:00Theism and ProbabilityOr: A Prolegomenon of Prodigious Length to the Further Explanation of my ApostasyWhen I'm asked (as I often am) why I left the Faith, the first part of my answer has to do with recognizing that I wasn't being rational in how I confronted the question of God's* existence, how I was seeking a justification to keep believing rather than sincerely investigating, and that my real (social and Patricknoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-59952649621656608442008-03-11T22:22:00.000-07:002008-03-11T22:24:55.446-07:00Why I Ought to be Cautious About NietzscheOr: Was für eine Philosophie man wähle, hängt sonach davon ab, was man für ein Mensch ist. [What kind of philosophy one chooses depends on what sort of man one is. -Johann Fichte]As much as I find for Nietzsche contra omnes on so many issues, it would be dishonest of me to deny that the philosophical is personal here as well. I must acknowledge that part of the attraction that Nietzsche's Patricknoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-25417821263948899542008-03-10T22:59:00.001-07:002008-03-10T23:32:18.640-07:00Why Nietzsche Is So AstuteIt's as if he sees what I see, only ten times more clearly:You see what it was that really triumphed over the Christian god: Christian morality itself, the concept of truthfulness that was understood ever more rigorously, the father confessor's refinement of the Christian conscience, translated and sublimated into a scientific conscience, into intellectual cleanliness at any price. Looking at Patricknoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-62621173277289180602008-03-09T18:25:00.000-07:002008-03-09T19:21:32.469-07:00Stuff Patrick LikesIf I were cool, I would have linked these a long, long time ago, but we all know I'm not...1. Stuff White People Like. The hipster-intellectual social hierarchy, based on "authenticity", oneupsmanship in irony, and sensitive social concern, was obviously ripe for satire; but it's great to see one so trenchant. I've observed all of these in Berkeley, and I'm not immune to some of these (say, thePatricknoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-18067544107127644332008-03-05T00:02:00.000-08:002008-03-05T00:12:18.153-08:00Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind?Hypothetical moral dilemmas are not a popular topic in some circles. I recall Darwin Catholic, in particular, decrying hypotheticals of the Trolley Problem sort as worse than useless, as somehow pernicious. In this I think he's quite perceptive, because I think that moral dilemmas and the way human beings react to them tend to undermine theories of the conscience as moral perception.For examplePatricknoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-59041841064897431692008-02-26T12:06:00.000-08:002008-02-26T12:08:49.576-08:00Rather than writing for ONB, I've been composing my first paper for that Nietzsche course, on his aesthetic justification of existence in The Birth of Tragedy. My introduction was blasé, my prose turgid, my analysis facile and my conclusion an anticlimax; apart from that, the paper wasn't half bad. I'll see if I can improve my writing for the next one.Patricknoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-86778169448397505982008-02-21T11:47:00.000-08:002008-02-21T12:06:23.231-08:00See, this is why I love Nietzsche.The intellectual conscience.— I keep having the same experience and keep resisting it every time. I do not want to believe it although it is palpable: the great majority of people lack an intellectual conscience. Indeed, it has often seemed to me as if anyone calling for an intellectual conscience were as lonely in the most densely populated cities as if he were in a desert. Everybody looks atPatricknoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-58171063633524387522008-02-08T22:03:00.000-08:002008-02-12T16:05:04.500-08:00Upgraded to the new Blogger.I'm afraid I can't keep the Haloscan comments (at any rate, the ads on them were becoming increasingly irritating) in the new system. So, here we go with Blogger comments.UPDATE: Whoops! OK, I didn't mean to require comment moderation. Fixed that.Patricknoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-60370643606340071832008-02-06T18:10:00.000-08:002008-02-08T22:03:23.864-08:00It is an eternal phenomenon:the insatiable will always finds a way to detain its creatures in life and compel them to live on, by means of an illusion spread over things. One is chained by the Socratic love of knowledge and the delusion of being able thereby to heal the eternal wound of existence; another is ensnared by art's seductive veil of beauty fluttering before his eyes; still another by the metaphysical comfort thatPatricknoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-44202874843417921182008-02-06T17:35:00.000-08:002008-02-08T22:05:20.362-08:00Because I do not hope to turn again.I've been heavily reading that Icarus of philosophy, who at last soared too close to the sun of searing truth before plunging into the sea of madness. You know to whom I refer. He has his many flaws, the marks of his generation and the marks of his own frenzy, but on matters of the greatest import he stands where others can only crawl.I've written up a storm today, but it would perhaps shock Patricknoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-90983097777727746642008-02-05T08:50:00.000-08:002008-02-05T08:58:19.489-08:00Yes. We. Can.After all that careful, dispassionate deliberation, suddenly I'm surprised to find myself actually excited to vote today. I woke up to Obama getting interviewed on KFOG, followed by the news that the latest polls had him ahead of Hillary, 49% to 36%; and I've been getting legitimately giddy as I'm getting ready for the day. It's a weird feeling for me with respect to politics.Patricknoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-34178739475113329512008-01-29T18:02:00.001-08:002008-01-29T21:05:54.518-08:00NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.Have I told you about the paper I've been procrastinating working on for months? That first original proof of mine (well, except for the part where my advisor told me what to try every week when I got stuck)? That one little brick I'd polished up and was planning to mortar to the grand edifice of mathematics, thereby beginning in earnest my mathematical career?Turns out it was old hat 14 years Patricknoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-68141397952888203682008-01-28T12:17:00.000-08:002008-01-28T12:29:27.383-08:00After reconsidering my political views over these several months, I've judiciously and provisionally decided to vote for Barack Obama in the California primary. Once politics is stripped of the fictive deontologies of both sides, it seems best for the nation and the world if we move to the left on many social and economic matters, not to mention foreign policy. What works for Western Europe Patricknoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-39065020859719655552008-01-15T10:47:00.000-08:002008-01-15T12:41:26.697-08:00How I Learned To Start Worrying And Fear The BombIn case you were wondering where I've wound up on moral thought, I pretty much agree with Steven Pinker's outlook in his piece in The NY Times Magazine, The Moral Instinct. Much of our moral intuition comes from hard-and-fast rules (built into our emotional responses) that work in most basic situations, but tend not to produce good results when thinking about large-scale or complex issues. (Patricknoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-64161559182135925512008-01-14T15:23:00.000-08:002008-01-14T15:27:02.439-08:00Well, that didn't take long.Something beautiful and completely unexpected just happened, thanks to Resolution #3. Details available in personal correspondence.Patricknoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-39518928538583590232007-12-31T19:23:00.000-08:002007-12-31T19:28:11.946-08:00Resolved:1. Make new mistakes.2. Make my fears roughly proportional to the dangers.3. Put myself where fate can find me.4. Emote, sympathize, help.5. Maybe do some friggin' math.Patricknoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-55030982604884854002007-12-30T22:08:00.000-08:002007-12-30T22:28:07.498-08:00In another vein:Our day-to-day life is bombarded with fortuities or, to be more precise, with the accidental meetings of people and events we call coincidences. "Co-incidence" means that two events unexpectedly happen at the same time, they meet: Tomas appears in the hotel restaurant at the same time the radio is playing Beethoven. We do not even notice the great majority of such coincidences. If the seat Patricknoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-36881113677407485312007-12-26T16:57:00.000-08:002007-12-26T18:02:46.324-08:00Meaning, Motivation and MoralsI haven't read much of Richard Dawkins before; in general, I distrust the quality of today's controversial intellectual celebrities, and much prefer to read the thinkers of yesteryear. But when I came home for Christmas, I found a copy of The God Delusion lying around (I assume that my father had been reading it in the hope of better understanding his son), and I gave it a try. I've been mostlyPatricknoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5488021.post-1068104652808680432007-12-25T21:24:00.000-08:002007-12-25T22:38:19.317-08:00So This Is ChristmasOr: No, Virginia. I'm sorry.Christmas is perhaps a good time to take stock of my cosmos, in the wake of these last few months. Before I finally abandoned the faith, I lived in fear that apostasy would mean despair, insanity, vicious egoism; imagine my surprise to find how little I've changed, and how in some ways I've changed for the good. Prior to my aversion, my social anxiety had developed Patricknoreply@blogger.com0